Could you elaborate on this a bit? This is the first time I've heard an accusation against Monsanto in relation to bee death. If you've got some good articles I'd like to read up.
Not only do multiple independent studies point to Monsanto's pesticides, Monsanto is accused of purchasing a bee research company which broke news about their product poisoning bee populations: http://www.care2.com/causes/research-firm-blames-monsanto-fo...
Oh wow, that's horrific...and here I was trying to be positive for once about the acquisition being a goodwill (well, as goodwill as you can get for those guys) effort to start developing bee-safe pesticides/crops. :/
Monsanto itself is actually purchasing companies that develop bee-safe pesticides, so obviously they believe it's a problem, too, even if you'll never hear them come out and say it in so many words:
Also, I have to take issue with the headline here, "No one knows why" doesn't appear to be true at all, even according to the NY Times article itself. Just a lot of hand-waving by those who profit from GMO/pesticides to throw off the trail while they figure out what to do behind the scenes, hoping it's not too late.
But GM crops aren't bee pollinated, they're wind pollinated.
There is so much GM hate by people who have only read or heard soundbites. My experience with GM crops has been that they have resulted in massively reduced levels of pesticide spraying (from an agricultural background) with the side Benicia thet the farmer saves money and insects are spared
Large swaths of the corn crop were wiped out last year, yet the article says that the deaths last year rose dramatically over the previous years. Wouldn't you expect a slight reduction in deaths, if anything, given the events that transpired?
Don't forget that industrial bees are fed corn syrup during the winter. Trace amounts of the toxin (designed to kill insects) are then fed to the bees all winter long.
Ironically, GM crops may wind up bringing bees back from the brink of destruction, in spite of people motivated by uninformed opinions like this.
GM crops (in general, not limited to roundup) allow a dramatic reduction in pesticide use. While they might not improve the predicament of bees being fed pesticide-contaminated corn syrup, they will reduce the overall background levels of pesticides in many hives' environments.
Sorry, that's bullshit. Benbrook's study has been found to have solid points, except for his conclusion that pesticide use has increased - in fact, the data he uses show that it dropped: http://www.bigpictureagriculture.com/2012/10/an-evaluation-o.... The other link is a no-value-added regurgitation of the Benbrook study by an opinionated pseudo-environmentalist website.
The organic label is meaningless, while true organic farming is resource-intensive and unsustainable as a global agricultural strategy.
The most upsetting fact is that most GM opponents simply refuse to acknowledge that genetic modification not only holds great promise for agriculture, but is simply a more efficient way to manipulate crops in ways that we have been doing for tens of thousands of years. This gets us farther from the goal of GM safety and agricultural sustainability, not closer.
Did you even read the conclusion on that amateur blog you cite to attack a widely-acknowledged scientific study?
It says: "At least for the short term, it looks as if more expensive and more hazardous chemical inputs will continue to increase in use for corn, soybeans, and cotton because of pesticide resistance which is growing at an alarming rate."
"Multiple possible causes of CCD have been identified. In 2007, some authorities attributed the problem to biotic factors such as Varroa mites and insect diseases (i.e., pathogens[5] including Nosema apis and Israel acute paralysis virus).[6][7] Other proposed causes include environmental change-related stresses,[8] malnutrition, pesticides (e.g.. neonicotinoids such as clothianidin and imidacloprid[9][10][11]), and migratory beekeeping. other possibilities have included both cell phone radiation[12][13] and genetically modified (GM) crops with pest control characteristics although no evidence has been found to suggest this.[14][15]
It is a fact that people have proposed that aliens make crop circles, but that says nothing about the truth of "aliens make crop circles".
That Wikipedia text quote is full of the former kind of phrase, using "Possible causes have been identified", "other proposed causes", and "other possibilities".
The sentence you emphasized starts with such a phrase:
"other possibilities have included […] genetically modified (GM) crops with pest control characteristics"
And then further weakens the statement with "although no evidence has been found to suggest this.*"
So, if I read that Wikipedia article, I mostly read "we don't know."
I didn't say anything about GM plants. Monsanto is the world's largest producer of pesticides. But yes, humanity is doing so many things to bees that it's hard to really pin it down to one single thing that is killing them off.
Certainly. The wikipedia page is a pretty good place to start (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesticide_toxicity_to_bees). As mentioned by someone else here, bees are also highly sensitive to RF emission, including our cell towers. Humanity is basically jamming their internal compass and spraying them with chemical warfare agents. It's completely insane that mainstream news is still publishing "we don't know why" articles...
